C8KNOWLEDGE

Onboarding & training assistant

A guided assistant for new hires or for any employee learning a new role. Walks through the firm's onboarding curriculum at the user's pace, answers questions as they come up grounded on company documentation, tracks progress, and flags topics where the user seems stuck. Sits alongside the structured onboarding plan rather than replacing it — handles the 'where do I find that?' and 'what does this acronym mean?' load that otherwise falls on managers and buddies. Particularly valuable in firms hiring at any meaningful rate, where each new joiner currently absorbs time from senior staff.

WHERE THIS FITS

BUSINESS SHAPES

B2B servicesProfessional servicesProduct company

VOLUME THRESHOLD

Below 20 new hires or role changes per year a month, the payback rarely earns the build. Patterns this shape reliably pay back at 100+.

REQUIREMENTS · 5 REQUIRED, 1 OPTIONAL

Requirements describe capabilities the pattern needs in your environment, not the vendors you must buy. Any system that fills a requirement satisfies it — that’s what makes the catalog portable across the long tail of SMB tooling.

onboarding_curriculum_source
REQUIREDREADcorpus
The structured plan the user is working through. Defines what they should know by when.
DATA SHAPE
Per-role curriculum with topics, learning objectives, sequenced modules, expected timelines.
COMMONLY FILLED BY
- structured onboarding documents per role
- LMS course definitions
- checklist maintained by People Ops
- role-specific runbook
company_knowledge_base
REQUIREDREADcorpus
The wider company knowledge the assistant answers from when the user has questions outside the curriculum.
DATA SHAPE
Company wiki, policies, product documentation, glossaries, org charts.
COMMONLY FILLED BY
- internal wiki
- company handbook
- shared knowledge base also used by C7 if live
- structured policy documents
user_progress_store
REQUIREDREAD + WRITErequest
Where the user's progress through the curriculum is tracked. Lets the assistant know what they've covered and what's next.
DATA SHAPE
Per-user progress: completed modules, current focus, recent questions, stuck points.
COMMONLY FILLED BY
- LMS progress tracking
- structured checklist in the People Ops system
- internal database the pattern maintains
conversation_surface
REQUIREDREAD + WRITErequest
Where the user interacts with the assistant. Has to be low-friction since they'll use it many times a day during onboarding.
DATA SHAPE
Conversational thread with user questions and assistant responses, plus curriculum-progression nudges.
COMMONLY FILLED BY
- chat DM with the assistant
- chat panel in the company portal
- browser extension available across internal tools
manager_visibility_loop
RECOMMENDEDWRITEbatch
Periodic summary to the new hire's manager about progress, stuck points, and topics the assistant flagged for human attention.
DATA SHAPE
Per-hire weekly digest: progress vs. expected, topics where the user spent the most time, questions the assistant couldn't answer well.
IF MISSING
Managers fly blind on how onboarding is actually going. Useful even at minimal cadence.
COMMONLY FILLED BY
- weekly email digest to the manager
- summary card in the manager's view of their team
- monthly review attached to a 1:1 prep
human_handoff_route
REQUIREDWRITEevent
When the assistant can't answer well, where the user gets routed to a human. Either their buddy, their manager, or a designated subject expert.
DATA SHAPE
Question with context, the assistant's failed attempt, suggested human handler.
COMMONLY FILLED BY
- DM to the assigned buddy
- ticket created for People Ops
- escalation to a topic-specific subject matter expert

RUNTIME FLOW · 7 STEPS

01
On user's first interaction, load their curriculum and current progress
onboarding_curriculum_sourceuser_progress_store
02
Suggest the next module or topic based on the curriculum and where the user left off
onboarding_curriculum_source
03
User asks a question or works through content; assistant retrieves from curriculum first, then company knowledge
company_knowledge_baseconversation_surface
04
Generate an answer grounded on retrieved content, with inline citations and a follow-up offer
conversation_surface
05
Update progress and note any topics the user asked about repeatedly (signals stuck-points)
user_progress_store
06
If the assistant can't answer confidently, route to human handoff with context
human_handoff_route
DECISION Trigger handoff on consecutive low-confidence answers in the same topic.
07
Periodic digest to manager with progress and stuck-points
manager_visibility_loop
DECISION Skip if manager_visibility_loop not filled.

EMISSIONS · 3

Structured outputs this pattern produces. Other patterns and client systems can subscribe to them, which is how the catalog composes over time.

onboarding_progress_signal
Per-hire progress data, useful for benchmarking how long different roles take to ramp.
CONSUMED BY
- People Ops dashboards
- manager 1:1 prep
- hiring quality reviews
curriculum_gap_signal
Topics where new hires consistently ask the assistant questions the curriculum should have covered.
CONSUMED BY
- curriculum maintenance
- buddy program design
- training material updates
stuck_point_signal
Concepts users find genuinely difficult, surfaced as candidates for better documentation or live training.
CONSUMED BY
- L&D priorities
- documentation team